Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
exactly as single shapes can. Optionally,
choose Arrange | Convert to Editable
Shapes and then Ungroup. You now have
multiple copies of the chair object to select
separately and move around.
Use the Mould Tool's Envelope Presets
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on the Infobar to create a version of the
chair that looks plump or tapered. You're
best off using the Mould Tool on only the
chair and not grouped with the shadow to
achieve predictable, bizarre results instead
of unpredictable bizarre results.
Consider using the Extrude Tool on a simple shape or a
F
IGURE
12-4
Buy a single piece
of furniture and then create a
complete dining room set by auto-
tracing it.
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character you type, and then put the extruded shape in
the chair. Figure 12-4 shows a number of possibilities.
Pop Art and Bitmap Tracing
Here's a quick set of steps that you can use with Bitmap Tracer
to create
un
realistic tracings. For over half a century, pop artists
(Andy Warhol in particular) have iconized common, everyday
objects from comic strip panels to soup cans. In the twenty-
first century, we still have icons: they're called
icons
. If you
take a close look at a desktop icon, you'll see it's a miniature
piece of artwork—an extremely limited number of pixels in
an icon have to represent a complete artistic idea, and if you
press PrintScreen and then paste the screen into Xara and zoom
in, the structure of the color pixels becomes of more visual
importance than the subject. A fly's-eye view of a small piece of
artwork can become High Art when you auto-trace it and then
apply some artistic touches of your own.
Sammy.png is an icon the author created so there is no legal
encumbrance to using this file to trace commercially or for sport.
Follow these steps to create an accurate trace of this little
icon that looks just like the icon from a distance, but close up
(poster-sized) is a pixilated “super-graphic”:
1.
Import Sammy.png to a new page.
2.
With the Selector Tool, scale the icon up until the status
line tells you the bitmap is about 7 pixels per inch.
